


Paris is for Lovers

by Snow



Category: Shelter (2007)
Genre: Community: help_pakistan, M/M, Paris (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/pseuds/Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It's actually more like fifteen minutes before Zach joins Shaun in the kitchen, but they've both learned to accept a more flexible definition of time when it comes to wrapping up a scene or a part of a painting.  Cody's snack clearly contained an appropriate amount of sugar, as he's now nearly bouncing off the walls.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Paris is for Lovers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for figaro23 for help_pakistan.
> 
> Thanks to GrayShadows for the beta.

Zach is working on his last project for his last final for the Spring semester when Shaun comes home after picking Cody up from school. Cody goes to enjoy a snack in the kitchen, but Shaun comes immediately to Zach's work area, which tends to move all around the apartment but is right now set up in Cody's bedroom, for no real reason other than that the cheery way Shaun set up the room suits the mood of this piece.

"Mind if I interrupt?" Shaun asks.

Zach waves his left hand while his right continues on with the detail work it had been engaged in. "You know I love to talk while I paint."

"Yes, but my talking in this case might include visual aids. I can wait for a better time; I just want to be able to have your full attention."

Zach considers his painting. "Give me five more minutes to finish the green bits."

It's actually more like fifteen minutes before Zach joins Shaun in the kitchen, but they've both learned to accept a more flexible definition of time when it comes to wrapping up a scene or a part of a painting. Cody's snack clearly contained an appropriate amount of sugar, as he's now nearly bouncing off the walls.

With a nod at Shaun, though, Cody goes dashing into his own room, shutting the door behind himself. Zach swallows a nervous breath and turns to Shaun, who's holding a bright yellow folder. "Is it about Jeanne?" Zach thinks it's likely to do with school forms - if it were anything serious he would have interrupted Zach, in the middle of painting or not.

Shaun laughs a little. "It's nothing serious, I promise. The visual aids are mostly for my own amusement. I'd just hate for you to accidentally flail with so much love that you knock over your own painting."

Zach sighs dramatically. "Yes, I'll marry you, my dear."

Shaun smirks. "Ooh, bonus good news. Back to my actual question: I was wondering if you'd let me give you a 'Congratulations for surviving your first two semesters' gift." Shaun rummages through the folder he's holding and pulls out a printout of clipart of a gift-wrapped box with a ridiculously cartoon-looking ribbon curled on the top.

It takes a couple of seconds before Zach can respond with anything but laughter. "Visual aids," he manages then.

Shaun looks carefully earnest at him, complete with batting eyelids. "Visual aids," he agrees.

"Whether or not I'd accept would depend on the gift," Zach says.

Shaun frowns, serious again. "Yeah, I was afraid of that. But I'm going to do my best to talk you into it." The paper Shaun pulls out this time is a certificate of participation in his middle school's speech team. "Thesis: I want to take you and Cody to Europe. I was thinking Paris and Prague."

"We don't have the money," Zach says quickly. He's totally flattered, but it's not a terribly realistic plan. He doesn't mind as much having to be the one to think through these things when he's with Shaun as when it was Jeanne. Maybe it's partly because even if Shaun's plans are less likely to happen, Zach can want them to.

"Counterpoint: a recent check from my publisher." Shaun removes a photocopy and Zach takes it, staring and a little taken aback. It's not a _huge_ amount, but considering they just got the advance check on Shaun's second book, it's certainly a surprise. "I've published a couple of short stories this year."

It's not that Zach _stalks_ Shaun's professional work, but he does try to keep an eye on things and it's not likely he could have missed anything Shaun wrote. "I haven't seen them," he says, trying to seem neither upset nor negligent.

"I've been writing them under a pseudonym," Shaun replies. "I figured it's enough to pay for most of the trip."

"And the rest?" Zach asks.

"That's the weak point of my argument. I was planning on asking Larry. Gabe seemed to think that a...decent idea."

"You're letting Gabe judge whether or not, morally speaking, you should do something?"

"Alright. I did only go to Gabe because I _wanted_ him to reinforce the feeling that I have that I should use Larry's money to take you and Cody to Prague. He'll agree because he'll think it's a sign that I'm letting him buy me. Might make up for the birthday and Christmas presents I wouldn't accept."

Zach raises his eyebrows, a silent question of, 'Why change now, then?' in his eyes.

"It's possible I've moved on to the stage in my interactions with him where I'm comfortable viewing him as a resource." Shaun shrugs nonchalantly. "And I _really_ do want to take you to Paris before I'm too old to run through the streets."

Zach gives an amused chuckle. "I think we've some time before that happens."

"Well, maybe. But it's something I want to do, and we _can_ do it now, without any huge sacrifices."

Zach thinks it over. "I have to work this summer," he says. He's already pretty much given in and is hoping Shaun will have an answer to this objection as well.

"You can take two weeks off, and I'll direct the next check for short story sales into whatever you needed that money for. Please?"

Zach nods. "Let's do this. But first, I think I want to read these short stories."

Shaun laughs lightly. "You already have. You've been raving over them for months."

Zach is silent for a couple of seconds, trying to place the new facts into his framework of understanding. " _You're_ Paul Petersdorff?"

"You did say it was a ridiculous name, as I seem to recall."

"That's because it is, but the writing is _phenomenal_. I can't believe you wrote those." Zach frowns, then. That's probably a very rude sort of thing to say. It's not that Shaun's first book wasn't wonderful, or that the manuscript he has for the second isn't brilliant, because they are. "Meaning, of course, that I didn't think you would go to the _bother_ of trying to hide it from me."

Shaun shrugs. "I like surprises. Besides, your reaction was great for my ego."

Zach chuckles. "At least you know my appreciation for you is constant, whether I know it's you or not."

* * *

Gabe visits on Tuesdays - unless he's taking a girl out on a date or has decided that Wednesday is the new Friday in terms of showing up to classes drunk - in something that has been a somewhat tradition since Cody started kindergarten. On Tuesdays, Cody has music at school, and in the afternoon his "Uncle Gabe" visits.

Zach has just sat down Cody at the table when there's the knock at the door. He goes to answer it with a smile. "Too much earlier and you'd have been waiting outside for us to come home."

There's a brief break in the conversation while Cody rushes over to hug Gabe, chattering animatedly about the activity he'd done in school today, with squares, and how Cody had talked one of the girls into sharing her blue square block with him when she wouldn't share it with anyone else. Gabe seems very impressed, and Zach would make a note to mock him about it later if he didn't completely understand how Cody could be the whole world without saying anything that would pass for conversation in an adult context. Zach had been just as enthralled by the same story half an hour earlier, after all, while he walked Cody home from school.

"I hear you're going to Paris this summer," Gabe says to Zach when Cody has returned to his food to determine how gummi bears dipped in chocolate pudding taste.

"So the rumor goes. We're also going to Prague."

Gabe frowns. "The rumor didn't include that. What do you want Prague for? Paris, I can see: a nice bottle of wine, you, Shaun-"

"Cody," Zach adds, before Gabe gets too much further.

"That just takes all the fun out of it," Gabe mutters under his breath, so Zach has to strain to hear. "That's not how you do Paris at all."

Zach grins. "I'm quite looking forward to it."

Gabe does an eye roll that Zach thinks conveys just how _weird_ Gabe thinks he is, then joins Cody at the table. "Is that the gummi bear in charge?" he asks.

Cody laughs. "They're not in charge, they're just for eating."

* * *

"I have a feeling Paris is lost on him." Zach sends a smile at Cody, who is pointing with glee at a building. He has to point through the arches of the Eiffel Tower in order to do so.

"N'ah," Shaun replies. "He just doesn't recognize that lots of people saying something is beautiful makes it so."

Zach laughs. "I'm sure that's it."

"Maybe we'd have more luck with that other fine Parisian establishment: the cafe."

"I'm feeling a bit hungry myself."

"Ah ah ah," Shaun says. "One does not go to a cafe if he feels hungry. One goes to a cafe if he is thinking about feeling peckish and would like to discuss l'art or la philosophie for several hours before eating."

Zach frowns. "You're playing with me."

Shaun shrugs nonchalantly. "I wish, but no. Perhaps if we look American and starving enough they'll take pity and bring us a basket of bread."

"I suppose we won't know until we try it."

"You definitely have a handle on this adventure now," Shaun says. "Come on, Cody, we're going to see if we can drive your uncle nuts."

"Too late," Zach mutters at his shoes, then glances up to see that he has to dart after Cody and Shaun so he isn't left behind.

**Author's Note:**

> I welcome and appreciate comments, including constructive criticism.


End file.
